


i could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me

by aceofdiamonds



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 02:32:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4002538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>season 8 au where jackie moves to chicago and doesn't come back</p>
            </blockquote>





	i could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me

 

 

 

Jackie moves to Chicago and it’s terrifying.

Everything is so big and different and she misses Steven so much it’s like there’s something squeezing her heart every second of the day until she can’t breathe. She lies in her bed in that nondescript motel and she can’t stop thinking about Point Place and if this is one big mistake.

After packing and unpacking her bags five times she makes it to her first day of work. Here everything is huge and intimidating but the people are surprisingly nice. She gets given a uniform, one that makes her a little washed out but she’s sure she’ll find a way to spruce it up in time, and one of the girls introduces herself as Lucy and shows her around.

“I’m from Georgia,” she tells Jackie. “When I first moved here I thought I was going to freeze to death every night, even during the summer. You’re from Wisconsin, right? You’ll be alright,” she says and then she smiles and Jackie feels a little more at ease.

“Yeah. I’m used to this,” Jackie says and laughs, trying to make it sound as though she means the TV business as a whole and not just the weather because sure she’s had her own public access show for a few months but that’s a world away from this shiny studio with its newsreaders and weather-women with glossy hair and frowns on their faces. “I can’t wait to get started.”

  
  


.

  
  


What really happens is that she makes coffee for everyone and their mother for the first ten weeks. She’s never made a cup of coffee in her life before this but now she feels confident she could make a living out of it. But it’s not why she came here. She came here to get her face on the silver screen. You listen to her -- Jackie Burkhart is going to be a household name one day, just wait and see.

When she mentions how much she hates making coffee to Lucy one night -- she might be her best friend in Chicago; she loves Donny too and she wears cute dresses that Donna would never be seen dead in and this is the sort of friend she’s needed for so long -- Lucy says that used to be her and that eventually things’ll get more exciting. Lucy makes copies for the senior executives and fills out forms that lead to scripts being on TV. It's a huge step up from making coffee.

“I want it to happen now,” Jackie whines, tipping more wine into her glass. “I gave up so much to be here,” she says, not really wanting to get into the whole Steven ultimatum thing with Lucy but she smiles sympathetically and it looks like she understands anyway. “I can’t wait to do what you do.”

“One day,” Lucy sighs, flopping back onto Jackie’s bed, the springs squeaking loudly under her, “we’ll be the stars of this place.”

And Jackie Buckhart shares the spotlight with _no one_ but right now she’s still a little uncertain of Chicago and living here alone so she makes a promise with Lucy that one day they’ll light up the screens with their names in big print. Whatever. She can break the deal nearer the time.

  
  


.

  
  


She writes in her diary every night, the entries long and detailed about how tired she is and how much she hates it here and that sometimes she misses Steven and Donna and even the rest of them so much she wants to get on the next bus and head home. The end of her pen is frayed from the chewing. It’s a disgusting habit, she thinks she might have picked it up from Eric at some point, and god she can’t believe she spent so much time in that basement with those freaks and now here she is out of there and living her dream and she can’t even bring herself to give in and enjoy it.

But after a while the diary entries slowly get happier, filling up with drinks out with a group of girls from work to celebrate a show that gets picked up and the congratulations her boss gave her when she made it six months. Now she’s not just making coffee but filling in paperwork too and sitting in on meetings discussing the script. The producer notes what a good team Jackie and Lucy makes and that they should put their heads together to come up with something fresh and original, just what girls like them would want to watch. She scribbles excited notes in her diary about the brainstorming sessions she and Lucy have, the storyboard they have propped up against the wall in Lucy's apartment, and when they show it to their boss and she makes approving sounds, saying she'll pass it on to her boss, Jackie draws out a star across a whole page. It’s a taste of the freedom Jackie came here for. It’s the next rung on the ladder -- okay, it’s small steps but she’s on her way.

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


Donna calls one night just after Jackie's came home from the office. The office. That sounds so grown up. So Donna calls after a few weeks and Jackie can tell from the background noises that she’s in Eric’s basement with everyone. Homesickness punches at her stomach, making her inhale sharply, and she closes her eyes and thinks about Eric’s stupid jokes and Fez’s creepy passes at her and Steven, everything about him, and the feeling passes. “How’s it going there?” she asks, leaning back on her bed. God. She is so tired.

“It’s a little quieter without you,” Donna says. Someone calls something in the background and Donna laughs, amending her answer. “Okay, it’s a _lot_ quieter.”

“I could send a recording of my voice,” Jackie offers. “So none of you forget me.”

“Like that could ever happen, Jackie,” and there’s a teasing there that took a while to come nicely, something Jackie has learned how to take as a sign of affection and not necessarily a burn all time. “I’ve had to think about my own problems alone without you here,” she says now and maybe Jackie’s projecting but she likes to think that’s Donna’s way of telling her she’s missing her. “Tell me all about Chicago.”

Jackie sighs. “Well,” and here is where she’s sure she could tell Donna that she’s still a little scared and unsure and she has Lucy now but everything is still impersonal and lonely a lot of the time and Donna would say something useless but somehow comforting. “Everything’s great. Oh, Donna, this has been the best decision I’ve ever made. I just wish I’d done it sooner.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s great, Jackie. I’m happy for you -- shut up, Fez. Fez says hey.”

“Is everyone there?”

"Nah, just Fez and Laurie. Kelso and Hyde mentioned something about breaking the law and no one's seen them since."

"The usual then?" Jackie asks, closing her eyes because it's been seven months now but it's still hard to hear about Steven being so far away. "How are Red and Mrs Forman?"

“Missing Eric,” she says, her voice quiet all of a sudden. Jackie holds the phone closer to her ear and slips further down the bed into a more comfortable position. She had almost forgotten she wasn’t the only one to leave and Eric’s much further away from Point Place than she is. So she thinks he’s a dork and no way is he ever going to be good enough for Donna but she’s grateful for a moment that someone else is missing out on everything too. Never let it be said that Jackie Burkhart isn’t selfish.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Donna,” she says now, no fakeness in her sympathy. For all that she dislikes Eric she knows Donna loves him. “Are you still sending him letters?”

“Mm. Mrs Forman is convinced they’re all that’s keeping him alive out there. I don’t think she knows that there are many parts of Africa that are very advanced.”

“That doesn’t sound very believable, Donna,” Jackie says doubtfully but adds, “I suppose you better tell him hi from me in your next one.”

“And that sounds even more believable,” Donna laughs. “Sure, I’ll tell Eric you said hey.”

Jackie huffs for a second before she backtracks, surprisingly eager to stay on the phone with Donna, with Point Place, that tiny place she left behind when her heart was broken and she was yearning for more.

“Coming back to visit us any time soon, Miss Big City?”

“I might manage a day at Christmas,” she says after a long pause because even though she misses the place where she grew up Chicago is her home now. She’s not good at looking back. “Hey, Donna?” she says just as Donna is saying goodbye.

“Yeah, Jackie?”

“I miss you and your giant feet.”

“Right back at ya, princess.”

  
  


.

  
  


Jackie moves to Chicago and flourishes.

Just after the one-year mark Lucy’s roommate moves in with her boyfriend and Jackie moves into her room, her clothes spilling out of the tiny closet and Lucy’s flat irons taking up too much room in the one bathroom. They bicker about whose turn it is to buy milk and who used up all the hot water but they also have movie nights curled up in their pyjamas, homemade salty margaritas in tumblers held between their knees. Jackie falls into her bed every night in her tiny room in her miniscule apartment in downtown Chicago and smiles into her pillow. This is home now. It feels permanent.

She’s moving up the ladder quickly at work. Another year here and she thinks she might make it on to the screen. When she had packed up all her things, said goodbye to Steven, and moved here to make it big she had thought everything would happen instantly. Now she's here she's learned that it takes time and experience to get places and she's realising she's okay with that.

“You’re a spunky little thing, aren’t ya?” a boss says one night when they’ve been working late on a special broadcast for the elections and Jackie had fired back angrily at a boy from the mailroom who had questioned her authority when she had said he had taken too long delivering crucial polls.

“Yes I am, sir,” she replies, tossing back her hair and standing tall. “My mother always told me a girl’s nothing if she doesn’t have a big voice and a strong attitude.”

“Where is it you’re from again?”

“Wisconsin, sir.”

He chuckles at that, chews on the end of his cigar. Jackie fights the urge to admonish him on his dirty habits. “Now why am I not surprised.”

Jackie’s never been ashamed of her home state but she’s never made it a point to tell people where she’s from, either. This changes her mind a little.

When she gets home that night, her legs heavy and her eyes heavier she heats up some milk in the microwave and flops on to the couch to catch the last of the election coverage. Lucy’s still at the studio, stuck making calls about advertising for the final few days. Jackie falls asleep right there on the couch and when she wakes up a few hours later she opens her eyes to see Lucy sprawled out beside her a blanket half-heartedly pulled across them both.

Jackie gets to her feet, stretching with a loud groan. “Wake up, sleepy,” she says, repeating it louder when it doesn’t work adding a kick the third time. “I call first shower.”

“You’re attacking me when I’m vulnerable,” Lucy whines, pulling the blanket up around her neck, blinking her eyes blearily over the top. “You’re mean, Burkhart.”

“Did I ever tell you I used to be a cheerleader?”

“So was I and I was never this mean.”

Jackie tugs at the blanket, laughing when Lucy clings on. “Get _up,_ Lucy Carmichael .”

“Phil made me stay until 3am, I swear to God, Jackie, one day I may kill him.”

“Remember what we said,” Jackie says, pulling the promise from the back of her head. “We’re going to be the ones running the show one day. We’re going to be on screens all across America telling our fellow Americans how to live their lives.”

“When we get there the first thing I’m going to do is make sure we make enough money to get enough hot water for two showers every morning.”

Jackie gives up, falling back on to the couch beside Lucy. It’s early still. They have time to lie here and play fantasy games about how their lives will be a year from now. When Jackie packed her bags and got out of Point Place she was scared and upset and eager for change however it may come. So she’s been on a total of six dates since she moved here and sometimes when she thinks about Steven her heart still twinges a little she’s focused on other things at the moment -- love can wait. Here she is with a best friend curled against her side and a growing career in the area she’s loved since she was a little girl. She’s doing just fine.

  
  



End file.
